Henry Whitehead 1825-1896: A Memorial Sketch (Glasgow, 1897)

In 1874, after working in a number of London parishes, Henry Whitehead (1825-1896) moved to the Lake District, initially as Vicar at Brampton before moving to Newlands and finally to Lanercost.  Rawnsley and Whitehead had many interests in common, especially church architecture and history, and bell-ringing.  Hardwicke wrote:

This memorial sketch, the preparation of which has been entrusted to me by Mrs. Whitehead, is an attempt to give some idea of the character and work of a man of rare qualities of mind and heart, who impressed all who knew him as a unique personality from whom they were ever learning new lessons of wisdom and charity.  I have endeavoured, by aid of the particulars placed at my disposal, to exhibit the outward influences that moulded his early years, and to give some picture of his life’s work in the different spheres of labour wherein his lot was cast.  I have felt, however, that my task might be best fulfilled by letting him, as far as possible, speak for himself, and reveal his own character in written and reported words.

Amplifying on some of the above, Hardwicke notes:

But it was not the personality of the man that alone was remarkable.  It was the dark sayings of the wise, the epigrammatic words of counsel, the proverbial expressions so constantly on his lips, that stuck.  They were sayings which were the result of keen observation.  As a young man at Lincoln he was noted for this, and hardly a conversation in after life but was salted with this pungent salt of pithy epigram.  “Never give reasons for what you do; if it is right to do, do it, never explain.”  “Always believe a man to be honest till you know him to be otherwise.”  “It is sometimes necessary to know a great deal in order to say very little.”  “Always understate your case; nothing is gained by over-emphasis.”  “No man looks a fool unless he thinks himself one.”  “Never be afraid to be in a minority of one; majorities are mostly wrong.”  “The chief good of having rights lies in being able to waive them.”  “A large part of Christianity consists in behaving like a gentleman.”  “Nothing is rude that is not meant to be rude.”  “The world comes to him that can wait.”  “When you write an important letter always sleep on it.”  “He that believeth shall not make haste.”  These and many other short sentences of the kind will recur to those who remember him, as samples of the sort of terse aphorism in which he delighted. (pp. 168-169)

Contents

Early Days (pp. 1-17)

College Days (pp. 18-28)

London Curacies (pp. 29-48)

Continuation of Work in London: The Published Sermons (pp. 49-88)

Brampton (pp. 89-129)

Newlands, Newton Reigny, and Lanercost (pp. 130-150)

The Testimony of Friends (pp. 151-165)

Personal Reminiscences: Whitehead as a Writer (166-196) 

Appendices 

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Flower-Time in the Oberland (Glasgow, 1904)

In May 1903, Hardwicke and Edith, accompanied by Gertrude and Catherine Simpson, set out on for a holiday in Switzerland, a country they had visited a number of times before.  This book is a record of that trip.  Its contents also include a number of pencil sketches by Edith.  Eleanor Rawnsley, Hardwicke’s second wife, records in her biography of her husband

[My] sisters wer again abroad with them, one of the memorable events of the tour being the occasion when Hardwicke, accompanied by the landlord of the hotel at the Engstlen Alp and other helpers, climbed a precipitous cliff by the side of a waterfall to obliterate with grey paint an advertisement of ‘Morgen Bitters’ which had appeared in enormous letters on the face of the rock.  It was during this visit to Switzerland that Hardwicke wrote his Book, Flower-time in the Oberland, which he dictated for the press to my sister Gertrude.  Of her he wrote home:

Gertruda, tho’ irreverent she jibes,
Has proved herself the very best of scribes;
There’s nothing shews where tact and common sense is
Like being called to be amanuensis—
And tho’ sometimes her spelling is erratic,,br />Her script is clear, and what the French call ‘pratique.’

(Rawnsley, Eleanor F., Canon Rawnsley: An Account of His Life (Glasgow, 1923), p. 169.)

In his Prefatory Note, Hardwicke wrote:

Encouraged first to go to Switzerland in Maytime by my friend John Ruskin, I have on each successive visit felt more and more how much the lovers of spring-tide foliage and flowers lose by postponing their journey to the Oberland, till the blossom has gone from the vales, and the snows have faded from all the lower heights.

This little record is published in the hope that those who have leisure or opportunity will make a pilgrimage in the prime of the year, when rest is surest and flower-time is the fairest.

Contents

At the Gates of Oberland (pp. 1-8)

The Hill of Saint Beatus (pp. 9-17)

At Beatenberg (pp. 18-32)

Walks at Beatenberg (pp. 33-50)

The Coming of Dawn at Beatenberg (pp. 51-58)

The Blaue. Kanderthal (pp. 59-70)

The Vale of ‘Nothing but Springs’ (pp. 71-84)

Mürren (pp. 85-92)

The Lake of the Four Cantons (pp. 93-111)

The Real Rigi (pp.112-126)

The Bürgenstock (pp. 127-138)

At the Angel Mount (pp. 139-156)

Walks at Engelberg (pp. 157-174)

Walks at Engelberg (pp. 175-188)

A Visit to the Monastery (pp. 189-199)

In Paradise (pp. 200-213)

Lucerne (pp. 214-237)

*Walks about Lucerne (pp. 238-262)

*Walks about Lucerne (pp.263-296) 

Walks about Lucerne (pp. 297-328) 

(* First published in 1896 by the Official Bureau of Information for Travellers at Lucerne as a pamphlet for tourists titled ‘The Revival of the Decorative Arts at Lucerne.)

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Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle. A Biographical Memoir (London, 1896)

Harvey Goodwin (1818-1891) was Bishop of Carlisle from 1869 to his death.  It was in this capacity, in 1883, that he offered Hardwicke the living of Crosthwaite saying: ‘In my opinion the post which I offer is as near Heaven as anything in this world can be’.  Following Goodwin’s death in December 1891, Hardwicke was asked by the Goodwin family to write a life of the Bishop.  In his Preface to the biography, Hardwicke wrote:

The aim of the work has been to trace the growth of the Bishop’s mind from childhood to prime; to arrange in chronological sequence the main facts of his life at Cambridge, at Ely, and in the Diocese of Carlisle; and to put on record so much of his thoughts on men and things, on problems civil and religious, on matters scientific, educational, and ecclesiastical, as may, perchance, help the people he loved, and the Church and State he so faithfully served.

Although Bishop of Carlisle for over twenty years, Goodwin was buried in Crosthwaite churchyard.  In the biography, Hardwicke writes:

There was momentary disappointment among the citizens of Carlisle, that the remains of their beloved Bishop were not to rest beneath the shadow of the Cathedral walls.  But reflection showed, that in choosing the loveliest burial-ground in a central country parish in his diocese, his friends had acted for the best.  It was natural that he should wish his remains to lie in ground which was endeared to him by almost lifelong memories of kits beauty and its rest, and which had been hallowed by him by the fact that there lay buries his well-beloved son. (pp. 327-328)

Hardwicke continued:

From end to end of the country, men deplored the sudden death of one who was spoken of as “the strongest Bishop on the Bench.”  Churchmen and Non-conformists alike felt that a champion of the faith against all comers had been lost to the cause of Christian religion.  They who were interested in maintaining that religion and science might well, without continual quarrel, go their way and help the world to heaven, knew that a mediator and a peacemaker, of clear sight and judicial mind, had passed away.  The friends of Foreign Missions realised that a warm supporter had gone.  The National Church knew that the voice of one of its ablest defenders was silent, and Convocation had lost a true and sagacious counsellor; Cumberland and Westmorland deplored not only the bishop of the diocese, but a leading man in public affairs; while the clergy and laymen of the diocese alike recognised that a ruler, with no party bias but of a just and temperate spirit, had passed from among them. (p. 331)     

Contents

Birth and Childhood, 1818-1825 (pp. 1-12)

School Days, 1826-1833 (pp. 13-25)

Between School and College, 1834-1836 (pp. 26-36)

College Days, 1836-1840 (pp. 37-49)

Cambridge Life, 1841-1845; Married Life, 1845-1848 (pp. 50-69)

Life at St. Edward’s, 1848-1858 (pp. 70-92)

Ely, 1858-1860 (pp. 93-111)

Ely, 1860-1868 (pp. 112- 126)

Bishop of Carlisle, 1869 (pp. 127-143)

Carlisle, 1870-1871 (pp. 144-165)

Rose Castle and Carlisle, 1871-1877 (pp. 166-195)

Carlisle, 1878-1881 (pp. 196-218)

Carlisle, 1882-1883 (pp. 219-233)

A Church Congress, 1884 (pp. 234-260)

Carlisle, 1884-1886 (pp. 261-284)

Carlisle, 1887-1890 (pp. 285-317)

Carlisle, 1891 (pp. 318-330)

Conclusion (pp. 331-352)

Appendices 

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Edward Thring, Teacher and Poet (London, 1889)

Edward Thring (1821-1887) was a great friend of Hardwicke’s father as well as god-father to Hardwicke himself.  He was headmaster of Uppingham School during Hardwicke’s schooldays in the 1860s.  There is no doubt that along with John Ruskin, William Wordsworth and Alfred Tennyson, he was one of the seminal influences in shaping Hardwicke’s development.  It was Thring who introduced Hardwicke to the Lake District and the poetry of Wordsworth.  Thring rented a house, Ben Place, in Grasmere, and invited Hardwicke to join him and his family during a school holiday in the late 1860s.  Thring’s ideas had a major impact on shaping Hardwicke’s own thinking on the importance and practical aspects of education, which influenced the latter throughout his life as he strove to improve the educational systems of the country.

The genesis of this book was a request by the Birmingham Association of School Teachers for Hardwicke to give a paper on Edward Thring in the spring of 1888 in St. Edward’s School.  He opened his address:

The subject of our meeting tonight is one which, you may be sure, was not self-chosen.  One almost fears to speak in public of a man to whom one owes in secret such debts, as any one who came immediately under so heroic and characterful an influence, must confess he owes to Edward Thring.

Yet none the less gladly would one publicly testify as a pupil, of whatever one had found to be true in the teaching of him who, master and friend from first to last, has left such impression of goodness and greatness upon the minds he roused and the hearts he inspired amongst one’s contemporaries.

Hardwicke closes his chapter on Thring as a teacher:

He had his failings—who has not?  He was an autocrat almost to a fault—if generals are not to be autocrats ex-officio—and sometimes he seemed to be unable to see the other side of a question.  He occasionally took curious antipathies to boys who were worthy, and honoured those we thought less honourable; but he always acknowledged true work of any kind; always delighted in any true self-sacrifice; and I never yet met the Uppingham boy who did not, as he got into life, admire with deep admiration the heroic, unswerving character of the master, firm at his post, doing whatever of truth he knew unflinchingly; nor have I seen the Uppingham man who did not feel that, wherever he was, were he but doing his duty, he was assured, though all the world were against him, that he had his old Headmaster’s surest sympathy.  Thring taught the bond of fellowship the wide world over, for work, for truth, for life, and righteousness. (pp. 56-57) 

Contents

Edward Thring as Teacher (pp. 11-59)

Edward Thring as Poet (pp. 61-83)

Memorial Notice (pp. 85-93)

Commemorative Sonnets (pp. 95-117)

Works by Edward Thring (p. 119)

Biographical Note (p. 120)

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